George Will makes a good point today--the GOP still has a remarkably strong pulse:
"...the Republican Party retains a remarkably strong pulse, considering that McCain's often chaotic campaign earned 46 percent of the popular vote while tacking into terrible winds. Conservatives can take some solace from the fact that four years after Goldwater won just 38.5 percent of the popular vote, a Republican president was elected. The conservative ascendancy that was achieved in 1980 reflected a broad consensus favoring government more robust abroad and less ambitious at home -- roughly the reverse of Tuesday's consensus. But conservatives should note what their current condition demonstrates: Opinion is shiftable sand. It can be shifted, as Goldwater understood, by ideas, and by the other party overreaching, which the heavily Democratic Congress elected in 1964 promptly did."
Indeed. I mean, there were people talking about an Obama "landslide." Well, gaining less than 20 seats in the House, and about 6 seats in the senate, is hardly a landslide. Nor is winning 52-47% or thereabout in the popular vote. The feelings among Republicans and conservatives right now remind me a lot of how we felt in 1992, after Bill Clinton's victory.
And then came 1994. Chin up!
